Surprised with Breakup and Unsure How to Cope :(

Hi Everyone,

I hope everyone is having a good day. I'm not quite sure how to start, so I'll just go from the beginning (may be quite long; I apologise)

Last month (28th Feb), my partner of 2 and a half years decided to end the relationship. This came as a complete surprise to me as up until then, our relationship was incredible.

My now ex is an amazing man; he's incredible. He's kind, funny, generous, slightly kooky, extremely attractive, intelligent compassionate, however he suffers from anxiety, which I was aware of and constantly tried to help him through. We shared an apartment together and discussed our future. We've travelled together and are totally in love with each other's families etc - basically our relationship was solid. We've never argued, we got each other, he was also my first boyfriend and first..everything.

Cut to a month ago, I noticed he was acting a bit distant. Upon confronting him (albeit in a calming manner), he proceeded to tell me that he no longer wanted to be in the relationship and that he wanted to be and live alone in order to concentrate on curing his anxiety (he doesn't really know himself, doesn't know what he wants for his future or if he wants to settle down). While breaking up with me, he told me that it was nothing I had done, that I had been the best girlfriend for him and that his life had been made 100x better by me being in it. He told me that he loves me and that in the future, he would want to stay in contact and be close friends as losing me would be "devastating" to him.

We haven't spoken in 10 days as we wanted to give each other some space, however yesterday I caved in and spoke to him via Whatsapp. He told me that he doesn't want to speak to me right now as he wants to get over it and avoiding contact with me right now is the only way he can cope with his decision/what he's done. He said if he speaks to me, he'll end up feeling conflicted and sad. On the night we broke up, we both hugged each other and cried.

I don't know what to do guys. I've lost the love of my life and every day feels like a struggle to get through. My chest hurts, I feel lethargic, I don't feel as if i'm good enough, and I can't get him out of my head. There isn't a day that goes by when i'm not thinking about him and i've been crying every day for a month since it happened. It feels like half of me has died. It's such a feeling of loss and depression.

The few people I have spoken about this with (who know or have met him, or have seen us together) have all said the same thing: "give him his space, he'll probably come back to you after 6 months or a year when his mind is right".

As much as that sounds amazing, I don't want to cling onto this false hope as I feel it won't allow me to truely move on. At the moment, I cannot see the light at the end of the tunnel; all I see is him, slipping away. He means the world to me and now that he's gone, nothing makes sense anymore. I'm extremely lonely and I just don't feel like doing any of the things I used to enjoy.

Any sort of help or advice would be really really helpful at this point.

Thank you so much for reading,

Steph